TALL, BLOND AND HARD ROCK STUBBORN TO BOOT!
by Kierielle
Summary: An invented biography for Slim Sherman owner and partner in the Sherman Ranch near Laramie, Wyoming.


TALL, BLOND AND 'HARD ROCK' STUBBORN

An inventive biography of 'Slim' Sherman by Rielle

Gary Cooper as Matt Sherman, Sr.

Helen Hayes as Mary Sherman

Matthias Makiel Aarden Menary 'Slim' Sherman as he would most often be called by family and friends was born in Bellevue, eastern Nebraska Territory as it was, on March 6th, 1842, with his twin brother, Karel Robrecht 'Robbe' [named for Matt Sr's father, Karel who emigrated from Leiden- only to find his own surname, Schermer, translated to Sherman by the customs' officials] to Matthias Makiel and Moira Siobhan Isobeal Menary Sherman.

Matthias, Jr. and his twin were the second and third sons born to the young couple. Their older brother named Ceallach [Kelly] for Mary's father [whose father emigrated from Newry in County Armagh] was born two and a half years earlier. At this time, the young Sherman family lived with the Menarys, Mary's family.

Settlement of what became Bellevue began when a fur trading post was built in 1822 by Joshua Pilcher, then president of the Missouri Fur Company based in St. Louis. The post was later known as Fontenelle's Post after being run by Lucien Fontenelle, a fur trader who purchased it in 1828 to represent the American Fur Company. The Post served as a central trading point with local Omaha, Otoe, Missouri and Pawnee tribes. Early French Canadian trappers named the area Belle Vue because of the beauty of the view from the bluffs overlooking the Missouri River.

With the decline in the fur trade, in 1832 Fontenelle sold the post to the US government for the Missouri River Indian Agency (also called the Bellevue Agency). When Baptist missionaries Moses and Eliza Merrill arrived in 1833, the Indian agent let them stay temporarily at the post.

In 1835 the Merrills moved with the Otoe about eight miles to the west, where they established what was known as the Otoe or Moses Merrill Mission. Fontenelle's Post was abandoned about 1839-1842.[6] In 1839 the Steamboat Pirate sank on the Missouri near Bellevue. In the 1830s a log cabin was built at present-day 805 Hancock Street, that still stands today.

Colonel Peter Sarpy, a fur trader and Louisiana Creole who also was based in St. Louis, established a trading post across the river from Bellevue in what became Iowa. It chiefly supplied the expeditions of European and United States settlers bound for Oregon and later, California's Gold Rush. About 1846, Sarpy also set up a ferry between Bellevue and St. Mary's, Iowa. By the 1850s, one of his ferries ran by steam. Bellevue was also a location of Mormon settlement around 1850.[7]

As a prominent businessman, Sarpy was active in community affairs in Bellevue. He helped plat and organize the town. In addition, he platted Decatur. The Nebraska legislature named Sarpy County after him for his service in community organizing.

Ideally situated on the Missouri River with access to the Platte River Valley, Bellevue continued to grow. The community became a hub for transfer of manufactured goods from the East and furs from the West. From the 1840s until the 1850s, Bellevue prospered.

But Matt Sr wanted his own place and began to read and study and to question travelers headed west, some towards Oregon, some towards New Mexico, some towards Texas. Oregon sounded the best choice to Matt and Mary and they began to work even harder, save what they could and prepare to take their family west on the Oregon Trail.

The first daughter of Matt Sr. and Mary was named Margred [Margaret] Ailis [Alice] for both grandmothers - 'Meg' was born further west in Nebraska Territory - near the future site of Fort Kearney, three years after the twins. Her sisters, Caitriona, Eireann, and Muriel followed her in the birth order. Two more sons followed, Andreas Laurens [Andy] and the youngest of the family, Liam Sebastian. Muriel, Andy and 'Li' were born on what became the Sherman Ranch in what was now western Nebraska. [And would become Wyoming Territory in 1868].

Their life was harsh on the great plains and of these nine children four died young and one died as a young mother: Robbe, Mathias, Jr's twin, died in 1853, of pneumonia, which had no known treatment at that time, Caitri, Muriel and Liam died during a cholera outbreak in 1857 and Meg died giving birth to her second child, a son, who she named Robrecht Matthias, in 1860. Meg's children, Moira Ailis and Robbe returned to eastern Nebraska with their now widowed father, Gabriel Zachary Plummer.

Eireann also left western Nebraska to marry and live with a young soldier, Lt. Elias Timothy Morgan, in his first posting at Fort Kearney. When Morgan was ordered east with his regiment, to take part in the War, Eireann lost touch with her family. It would be more than ten years before they reconnected with each other.

Matt Jr and Andy stayed on the Sherman lands, until, after quarreling with his father over the decision for months, Matt Jr 'Slim' left to sign up with the First Nebraska Volunteers in the fall of 1861. When seriously wounded by grapeshot on the second day of the battle of Shiloh, Slim was separated from his unit and taken to a field hospital. Chaotic conditions and near panic there caused a delay in his treatment from which Slim Sherman afterwards bore a noticeable scar on his face.

From the field hospital Slim was sent to a receiving hospital in Nashville, already in Union hands that early summer of 1862. However the course of his service during the War was radically altered at this point, when a confusion in orders sent now Sergeant Sherman to the 23rd Missouri Infantry. He continued with that regiment throughout the remaining three years of the War. The 23rd Missouri, among many other regiments from 'the West',

became part of the Army of the Tennessee, and as such fell under the overall command of Major General William Tecumseh Sherman.

1st NEBRASKA VOLUNTEERS

1st REGIMENT INFANTRY.

Organized at Omaha June 11 to July 21, 1861. Attached to Dept. of Missouri to February, 1862. District of Cairo, Ill., February, 1862. 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division, Army of the Tennessee, to July, 1862. Helena (Ark.) District of Eastern Arkansas to October, 1862. 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, Army of Southeast Missouri, Dept. of Missouri, to March, 1863. District of Southeast Missouri to November, 1863.

**SERVICE:**

Left State for St. Joseph, Mo., July 30, 1861; thence moved to Independence, Mo., August 3-5, and to St. Louis, Mo., August 8-11. Moved to Pilot Knob, Mo., August 13-14, and to Syracuse, Mo., August 19. Duty there till October 21. Fremont's Campaign against Springfield, Mo., October 21-November 2. March to Sedalia and Georgetown November 9-16. Campaign against Bushwhackers December 8-15. Pope's Expedition to Warrensburg and Milford December 15-27. Action at Shawnee Mound, Milford, on the Blackwater, December 18. (Capture of 1,300 prisoners.) Duty at Georgetown till February 2, 1862. Moved to Fort Donelson, Tenn., February 2-13. Investment and capture of Fort Donelson February 13-16. At Fort Henry February 17-March 6. Moved to Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., March 6-13. Battle of Shiloh , Tenn., April 6-7. Advance on and siege of Corinth, Miss., April 29-May 30. March to Memphis, Tenn., June 2-17; thence moved to Helena, Ark., July 24, and duty there till October. Expedition from Helena and capture of Steamer "Fair Play" August 4-19. Milliken's Bend August 18. Expedition up the Yazoo August 20-27. Haines Bluff August 20. Bolivar August 22. Greenville August 23. Moved to Sulphur Springs, Mo., October 5-11; thence to Pilot Knob October 28-30, and to Patterson November 2-4. Moved to Reeves Station December 9-10, and return to Patterson December 19. Moved to Van Buren December 21-24, and toward Doniphan January 9-10, 1863. Moved to Alton January 14-18; to West Plains and Salem, Ark., January 28-February 2. Moved to Pilot Knob and Ironton February 2-27. Moved to St. Genevieve and to Cape Girardoau March 8-12. Operations against Marmaduke April 21-May 2. Action at Cape Girardeau April 26. Pursuit of Marmaduke to St. Francis River April 29-May 5. Castor River, near Bloomfield, April 29. Bloomfield April 30. Chalk Bluffs, St. Francis River, April 30-May 1. Moved to Pilot Knob May 26-29 and duty there till August 28. At St. Louis, Mo., till November. Regiment ordered mounted October 11, 1863, and designation changed to 1st Nebraska Cavalry November 6, 1863 (which see).

23rd Regiment, Missouri Infantry

OVERVIEW:

Organized in Missouri at large September, 1861. Moved to Macon City, Mo., October 15, 1881, thence to Chillicothe, Mo., November 1. Attached to Dept. of Missouri to March, 1862. St. Louis, Mo., Dept. of Missouri, to April, 1862. Unattached, 6th Division, Army of the Tennessee, to April, 1862. District of St. Louis, Mo., Dept. of Missouri, to June, 1863. District of Rolla, Dept. of Missouri, to Decemher, 1863. Unattached, District of Nashville, Tenn., Dept. of the Cumberland, to January, 1864. 2nd Brigade, Rousseau's Division, 12th Army Corps, Dept. of the Cumberland, to April, 1864. Unassigned, 4th Division, 20th Army Corps, Dept. of the Cumberland, to July, 1864. 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, 14th Army Corps, to July, 1865.

**SERVICE:**

Duty at Chillicothe, Mo., November, 1861, to March, 1862, and St. Louis, Mo., till April. Moved to Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., April 1-4. Battle of Shiloh, Tenn., April 6. Regiment captured April 6. Duty at St. Louis, Mo., till August, 1862; at Macon till November, 1862; at Hudson, Mo., till December, 1862, and in Central District of Missouri. Company "A" at Gasconade, Company "D" at Osage City, Company "I" at St. Auberts; rest at Prairie City, District of St. Louis, December, 1862, to July, 1863. Operations against Marmaduke April 14-May 2, 1863. Cape Girardeau April 26, Ordered to Rolla July 5, 1863. Duty in District of Rolla till December, 1863. (Co. "G" ordered to Cape Girardeau July 5, 1863.) Operations against Shelby October 7-22. Ordered to Nashville, Tenn., December, 1863. Duty at Nashville and McMinnville and guarding Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad till July, 1864. White County January 16, 1864. Joined 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, 14th Army Corps, July 10, 1864. Atlanta (Ga.) Campaign July 10 to September 8. Chattahoochie River July 10-17. Peach Tree Creek July 19-20. Siege of Atlanta July 22-August 25. Flank movement on Jonesboro August 25-30. Battle of Jonesboro August 31-September 1. Operations in North Georgia and North Alabama against Forest and Hood September 29-November 3. March to the sea November 15-December 10. Near Milledgeville November 23. Siege of Savannah December 10-21. Campaign of the Carolinas January to April, 1865. Fayette, N. C., March 11. Battle of Bentonville March 19-21. Occupation of Goldsboro March 24. Advance on Raleigh April 10-14. Occupation of Raleigh April 14. Bennett's House April 26. Surrender of Johnston and his army. March to Washington, D. C., via Richmond, Va., April 29-May 17. Grand Review May 24. Moved to Louisville, Ky., June, and duty there till July. Mustered out July 18, 1865.

Regiment lost during service 2 Officers and 57 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 4 Officers and 173 Enlisted men by disease. Total 236.

On his return home, Slim was grieved and shocked to find his father had only recently died, and in circumstances that brought the remaining Sherman family still more trouble to deal with. Like so many other returning soldiers, the young man found himself burdened with family obligations just at a time when he would otherwise have been sowing his wild oats. Like so many others, Slim at first rebelled against the burdens he came home to. He fought with friends and neighbors and ran wild for a brief time. But Mary Sherman was dying, her big, kind, caring heart broken by Matt Sr's death, the plain back breaking work of the ranch itself and the absence of her only surviving daughter. And Andy was not only a stranger to his older brother but a growing boy who had never been farther away from the Sherman Ranch than on a rare trip to Cheyenne. Slim recognized his own earlier wanderlust in the youngster, and couldn't acknowledge it fully. He had to become a surrogate father to Andy, and at times that placed a barrier between them.

These brothers, who seemed night and day different to the new or the casual observer had in fact a great deal in common. Like their father, they each loved the openness of the land they lived on, and the perspective it lent them, making vast ideas, high ideals and great deeds seem all the more possible. Like their mother, they both had a strong sense of right and wrong, that was known at times to differ from the notions of neighbors, friends and strangers.

Like their siblings, each brother would sacrifice a great deal for their family as time went on. Like their neighbors and friends, both Sherman brothers often acted on the open-hearted ideals of the west, expecting the best of people, or at least hoping for it in all cases, until and unless proven wrong.

Like Matt, Sr, both Sherman sons placed a far higher value on people than they did on things, possessions or places, following the concept that many westerners learned one way or another: In that 'arena' a man stood or he fell, won out or he failed only with the support and care of his neighbors, and his care and support for them, in turn. Like Mary Sherman, both her surviving sons understood that life can be seen as simply as what those times called the Golden Rule, what later times have called karma. What a man or a woman does for another, needs to be what they would do for themselves, including what became known as 'the Sherman habit' in that part of Wyoming: taking that care of all the strays that crossed their land, including a wild-hearted, hard case Texan or two.

This proved out as a wise policy in many ways, but never more so than in the at first wary welcome Slim Sherman gave a drifter and gun hand from east Texas, by the name of Jess Harper. As with the Sherman brothers, the differences between these two former soldiers were far clearer than their resemblance to one another. Having re-found his own home and some measure of peace on the ranch following the War, Slim was quietly convinced that the 'good land' he took guardianship of from his parents could give those same gifts to other wounded wanderers, drifting away from the places and memories of a War that turned their world upside down and laid waste much of their generation. With time, but not as much as he expected it would take, Jess found the tall rancher was right. He had a home again, for the first time in far too many years. And for that home and the people who shared it, the young Texan would fight with every ounce of his heart, his strength and his spirit as long as he lived.

Records for the Sherman Ranch following Slim's return show that his hard work and stubborn determination paid off handsomely in the long run. Not only did the ranch eventually prosper, it escaped some of the damage done all across the plains from Missouri to Colorado and from the Dakotas south through Oklahoma during the great blizzards and bitter droughts of the 1880s and 90s. This was due, neighbors would later say to Slim Sherman's cautiously open-minded approach to new techniques, tools and ideas for ranching. Over time, the young rancher made himself an expert on what would be called land management and conservation. And he shared what he learned with anyone who cared to ask, just as he shared the ranch' abundance with neighbors who were not as fortunate or as careful.

A great many changes flowed across Wyoming in the next three decades or so. In 1868, it became a Territory, separated at last from the Dakotas and Nebraska and from the region that would become Montana. In 1890, Wyoming gained her statehood, and gave women the vote. Women were in sparse supply in the region and that was certainly one of the spurs to women's suffrage. But this writer and I believe others would agree that the open perspectives and generous spirit of the westerners was part of that progressive, even shocking legislation. What isn't as widely known about the process of women's suffrage in Wyoming is that a young lawyer/state legislator named Andreas Laurens Sherman was instrumental in making it happen, with the aid and support of his adopted brother Michael Timothy Williams and a pair of graying but enthusiastic ranchers.

As for the Sherman Ranch itself, by the time Wyoming gained statehood, several considerable changes had taken place. But no one in or around Laramie in that time found them particularly unexpected. The old ranch house and the barn were added onto, added onto again and then wholly dismantled, in part by a particularly vicious windstorm in 1879. In its place a larger dwelling grew, and grew again over the next decade, only to be joined by two other homes in the next decade and a half.

The larger house construction met several requirements: more rooms for a growing population of orphaned youngsters like Mike, frequent visitor/lodgers like Andy, other relatives such as Francie and Ben, and returning codgers like Tobias Jones. The larger barn structure had several new functions; including the housing of a menagerie that rivaled any of Andy's boyhood dreams. The added housing met the requirements of another set of changes entirely: the marriages of the partners.

Court documents filed during this period preclude, in fact, they forbid specific mention of the brides involved. Local stories however indicate that one was a transplanted ship captain's daughter from Maine, and the other a retired …singer, possibly from Colorado, Oklahoma or Missouri, now a music teacher in Laramie. There is no record, nor any local stories of anything but long, happy marriages between these parties. A profound respect for their privacy precludes any further details being offered.

In 1892, the Twelve Mile Hill Children's Home was officially established on the property. It had been in operation for something over a decade, without documentation. For many years afterwards children from all over the state and from further east, many from the infamous Orphan Trains, as well were made warmly welcome, sheltered and taught

and made part of a growing family . All involved in the life there thrived, worked and grew and gave back to the region for decades to come. A conservative estimate indicates that between 1880 and the mid 1960s, several thousand children had been part of '12 Mile Hill'.

For the owners of the property, life was full and rewarding. They were putting that 'good land' to the finest use possible, Slim noted in a rare journal entry having anything to do with his own efforts. And it seemed to constantly rejuvenate the people most closely involved. After directing the Home for several years, the older Sherman brother also served as Albany County's lead Councilman, as Commander of a Reserve Unit of 1st Nebraska Volunteer Veterans, and was asked more than once to seek wider public office. Those tasks he refused as outside his ken and not at all to his liking. In February 1928, a few weeks shy of his eighty-sixth birthday, Matthias Makiel Aarden Menary Sherman passed away in his sleep, at his home on the ranch his father established less than a century past. His wife, their seven children, his brothers Andy and Mike, and the widow of his partner survived him.


End file.
